2008-02-13 Board of Ethics Minutes Regular Session

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CHAIR: I see. YAGONG: But 1 understood why you're here today, Mr. Chair. 'Thank you. CHAIR: And let me go back to when you first did your presentation, and let me ask you some questions. First off, who is Steve, that you - YAGONG: - -I'm sorry, he's my council aide. That's Steve, that handed you the paper. CHAIR: So Steve was the one that was at the Tribune - Herald, that asked for the ad to be spruced up, that- YAGONG: - -Yes. CHAIR: Okay. That's Steve. Got it. YAGONG: With my direction. CHAIR: Got it. You know when this first came up, this entire issue first came up, and you thought, and maybe other people thought around you, that it might be problematic ethically —why didn't you, or why didn't anyone advise you, to petition the Board of Ethics to give an informal advisory opinion way back then? YAGONG: Well I think what happened was, I first got wind that there was some concern with it —with Mr. Ashida, I think you had it published in the last Ethics Board meeting, as far as his correspondence with me. He did talk to me regarding that, and what I did was I went to my County Clerk, Casey Jarman, and we spoke on that. And we did have different opinions in regards to Mr. Ashida's. So for me personally, you know, I think it was —it was being discussed with the property authority. I know Lincoln is the Corporation Counsel for the ethics commission, and at that point in time, if there was something that needed to be brought forward —you 're asking me why didn't 1 ask you that question? CHAIR: Yes. YAGONG: Well, first of all, at that point in time I didn't really agree with what Mr. Ashida had brought forward to me as an opinion, and my County Clerk did concur with that. So for me, I felt I was still on the right track as far as what I'm doing, you know, and what happened was —and that's a good question, Mr. Joseph. What happened was, when the inquiry came in from Mr. Ashida, what I also didn't understand at that point in time was there was this incredible you know, politics is pretty crazy sometimes —there was this incredible wave of people saying that, you know, that Yagong is doing all this stuff in the paper because he's going to run for mayor, you know, which was absurd. But that's politics. People are going to say that. And it was at that time, Mr. Joseph, that what I did was — because of this issue, because 1 wasn 't going to run for mayor, but because of this, I wanted to put an end to that rumor. That's why I called the West Hawai `i Today reporter and I told him exactly that I am not running for mayor. It was a front page headline news in the Tribune - Herald and West Hawai `i Today, and the reason 9